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I'm looking for a general way in Japanese to express the following:
X is Y years old.
I know for human age we use 〜歳 and I have seen other expressions for buildings and trees (don't remember them off hand).
At least speaking about inanimate objects, is there a generic way to express age? Here is my guess (probably awkward):
This car is 20 years old.
この車は２０年も古い
It is not nearly as simple as in English or many other languages.
You could say:
「X + は + Y + 年前{ねんまえ}のものである。」
「X + は + Y + 年前からある。」
「X + は + Y + 年前にできた。」 ←「できた」 here can be replaced by a verb in the passsive voice form such as 「作{つく}られた」,「建{た}てられた」, etc.
For buildings and trees, however, we have common set expressions.
Buildings: 「このビルは築{ちく}Y年である。」
Trees: 「あの木は樹齢{じゅれい}Y年です。」
For food and liquor items where aging is an important part of their values, we often use the expression 「Y年もの」. Unless used sarcastically, that expression generally carries a positive connotation with it. We say:
「３０年もののワイン」、「これは４年もののミソです。」, etc.
Finally, we would never say:
「この車は２０年も古い。」 to mean "This car is 20 years old."
The only times when we use 「も古い」 is when we say "A is Y years older than B." and emphasize that Y is a large number - "A is much older than B". The 「も」 is for emphasis and it is often used in combination with 「より」. You can say:
「このBMWは、あのトヨタより１５年も古い。」
